LSU RB is seen on video sucker punching man outside bar

For some reason they’ve escaped responsibility and culpability, virtually ignored when they should be the center of attention.

If you want to blame someone for the hands-off attitude toward player behavior in college football; if you want to know why off-field problems are increasing at an alarming rate, look no further than the most important job at every university in America.

Want to know why Jeremy Hill still is playing at LSU? Because King Alexander allows it to happen.

Just watch the video. Watch Hill, LSU’s star sophomore tailback, coldcock a man outside a Baton Rouge bar, and think about this: If you’re the president of LSU, is this really someone you want representing your university?

If you’re the president of LSU, is this really someone you want to give a third chance to; a player who has been convicted of two serious crimes—the first (carnal knowledge of a minor) of which earned him a sentence of probation he was currently serving when the second incident occurred.

So I emailed Alexander, who has been president at LSU for all of four months, to see if he could explain why Hill is still playing at LSU—and if he approved of it.

Needless to say, I got no response.

But understand this, everyone: If university presidents have the power to hire and fire coaches, to realign conferences and negotiate and approve multi-billion dollar television contracts, to create a fourth division and pay full cost of scholarship stipends that further distance the haves from the have nots in the game, you better believe they should be held accountable for discipline decisions when one of their football players breaks the law.

Never has there been a more powerful group of men and women with absolute control of so much money and influence—and all protected by the veil of academia.

It’s brilliant, really. University presidents have perpetuated this myth, this front, of hiring athletic directors to run athletic departments, all while making every major decision within nearly every athletic department.

We can ignore it no longer. We can’t sit back and blame the immediacy of social media, or the Internet, or—I can’t believe I’m even writing this—camera phones, as the reason we see more instances of players behaving badly.

Players are running afoul of the law more because they’re allowed to do so. They’re allowed to do so because the men and women with the most power at each and every university refuse to take a stand.

University presidents have built this behemoth of an organization that oozes cash with a federal tax-exemption, and they’ve stuck a poor sap with a million dollar salary at the top to take the heat for their bizarre and bewildering decision-making. Mark Emmert doesn’t run the NCAA, people.

Mark Emmert works at the behest of university presidents. They make decisions; he carries them out.

Emmert doesn’t stand up and make a grandiose statement about football never again being more important than academics at Penn State if he wasn’t given the green light by the NCAA executive council—which just so happens to be a group of influential university presidents who talk to other presidents before making any moves that may or may not harm/help the organization.

But when something within the NCAA goes awry; when an investigation of an athletic program is soiled by a rogue investigator; when enforcement seemingly picks and chooses who gets harsh/preferential treatment; guess who gets lambasted for the ills of the organization?

Yet these are the same men and women who publicly proclaim they hire people to run athletic departments while they focus on academia. Make no mistake, athletic directors and conference commissioners (who also work at the behest of university presidents) do fantastic work running a monstrously unwieldy business. Imagine what this dysfunctional model would look like without those dedicated and determined men and women.

Coaches, meanwhile, are paid to win. Though some are truly in it to win and help develop young men, there’s little doubt that for the majority winning and losing is the difference between employment and color commentary on radio and television.

LSU coach Les Miles should be criticized for keeping Hill on the team. He should be ripped for the farce of declaring he allowed “the team” to vote on Hill’s status.

But if you really want to blame someone, why not look all the way at the top?

Watch the video again. Imagine sitting in the president’s chair at LSU, seeing that video and knowing you’re protected because you’ve hired others to run the athletic department.

Know this, King Alexander: Jeremy Hill is representing your university every time he steps on the field.